Work picks up

Everything has been finalized for my teaching at MGU. This satellite branch of a famous Moscow University (rather like NYU Abu Dhabi or Texas A&M in Qatar), offers seven majors, including international relations and linguistics to about 570 students here in Dushanbe. It's considered a competitive school for students and a good workplace for faculty.

Many of the faculty fly in from Moscow periodically, but there's a core group of local instructors, including those who teach English--whom I'm working with. They've requested both academic writing (a seminar, a model class, and some co-teaching) and general methodology (which they're opening to colleagues from other universities in preparation for a conference later this spring). Here are half of the delightful team.

The same day all that was worked out, the embassy handed me a stack of applications to review.

Which teachers should participate in a year-long mentor training program? (And there will be more piles of applications for the TEA program, where teachers spend six weeks in the U.S.)

And, today was the first of a series of talks Lee and I are giving at the American Corner. More on that in another post.